JAPAN BOOK WHOLESALER ADMITS SELLING BOOKS TO ANTRHOPIC: INDUSTRY SOURCE - TOKYO JAPAN

JAPAN BOOK WHOLESALER ADMITS SELLING BOOKS TO ANTRHOPIC: INDUSTRY SOURCE - TOKYO JAPAN 

@Jr_Paku Midin Channel

TOKYO

A major Japanese book wholesaler has admitted selling a large number of books to U.S. artificial intelligence company Anthropic, according to a publishing industry source.

Nippan Group Holdings Inc, the parent company of Nippon Shuppan Hanbai Inc, recently confirmed the transactions in its response to a letter from the Japan Book Publishers Association.

Concerns are growing within the Japanese publishing industry that the books may have been destroyed after having their spines cut to enable scanning for digital data to train AI.

The association sought clarification after court filings in a U.S. copyright lawsuit revealed Anthropic had held talks with "Nippan Japan" to purchase books in bulk.

In the letter dated Sept 17, the association asked Nippan Group Holdings whether books sold to Anthropic included titles published by the association's member companies, the source said.

The association also asked how the wholesaler views selling large quantities of books to overseas customers without obtaining permission from their publishers.

"It would be regrettable if the company had sold books knowing they would be used to train AI," the source said, stressing that permission from authors and publishers must be obtained before supplying books for such purposes.

The source said the group admitted to the association that one of its companies had sold books to Anthropic for roughly a year from December 2024 but added it had not done so with the knowledge that the transactions were intended to train AI.

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